


dead water respiration

by Goose_Boy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous Character Death, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Drowning, Implied Sexual Content, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 17:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21060302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Boy/pseuds/Goose_Boy
Summary: Sometimes, it just...it was easier to let the water in. The water wouldn't leave him behind. The water loved him like she used to. Like she did.





	dead water respiration

**Author's Note:**

> 2019 Eldritch bang!  
Art by the fantastic trisscar368, you should go check out her tumblr!

The air was crisp when they had arrived that morning, just that side of too chilly, and his brother had shivered beside him. Little puffs of steamy breath chased each other from his lips and Sam had watched him stuff his fists into his jacket’s pockets to try to stave it off. He’d grumbled then and he grumbled now. Dean had never done well with anything less than a balmy mid-sixty and Sam had watched him over the top of the impala. 

“And she didn’t say anything about him having a drinking problem? No bad habits?”

He watched him a lot lately, didn’t quite know what to say when Dean wasn’t exactly sure how to look at him, and he wondered how they had gotten to this point. They used to be something, clattering laughter and easy hands, his name used to be a quick smile and his brother’s own used to be an eye roll; it felt cold now. _ He _ felt cold, come and gone so long he’d become used to it and Sam wasn’t sure what to do now. 

Big brother caught him before he could fall when his body buckled and his mind split to pieces with a vision, but something had broken between them the day their Dad had died. Everything felt just a little bit off now, woken up on the wrong side of the bed after sleeping all knotted on himself and Sam wasn’t sure what to do with himself these days. Sometimes Dean laughed at him, with him and the things he said, and other times he just–

“Eight years sober, never smoked, she couldn’t talk enough about him being the perfect husband.”

Roughly twenty yards between them and he still knew that face that Dean shot him, scrunched brows and a deadpan press to his mouth. His brother wore unimpressed like a second skin and it had always been comforting and infuriating in the same breath. Some things would never change, watery Michigan woods sprawling between them, around them, and he could still read his brother’s body language like it was his own. 

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Grumpy, almost irritable, his brother looked almost ready to fight the weather and Sam couldn’t help the way he smiled. A little exasperated, a little tired but he was always tired anymore, weary down to his bones for all that he could never seem to get enough sleep. Too many whispers that followed him out of his dreams; the dark circles beneath his eyes had deepened to bruises that he couldn’t rub away and Sam had given up trying. 

He’d thrown himself into this case instead just like he had the last one, watched his brother in his periphery all the while as Dean let something eat at him. Something he wouldn’t share, something he refused to talk about for all that Sam had tried his best to delicately prod. The strange, growing fissure between them yawned just like the forest floor that spanned the distance between their shoulders and Sam stepped through a puddle, paused to stare at it and the way his boot sank. 

“Surprised her with flowers, spontaneous dates, took cooking classes. He was a genuinely good guy, Dean. Not everybody’s hiding something.”

Weight on his opposite leg, foot shaking a bit and his sock had grown wet almost instantly. A hole then somewhere along the seam, waterproof boots suddenly not quite so resilient and he frowned down at it like that would fix his problem. 

“Everybody’s got something, Sammy.”

Dean grumbled just loud enough to be heard, raised his voice a little bit with that touch of a boom from the bottom of his lungs. Like Sam had ever needed help finding his brother, had ever needed help hearing him, used to be able to pick Dean out of crowded high school halls from the tone of his voice alone. Stanford, a few thousand miles, and the things Sam wasn’t allowed to have wouldn’t change that. 

“You’re projecting again.”

Almost distracted in his response, like he wasn’t sure where the words should have started, and Sam lifted his foot to try and find the problem. Hesitant kind of words, more occupied than anything else, but there was just mud caked to the sole and rain dripping heavily down his face. Snap of a branch from Dean’s direction and he heard his brother stumble, curse. 

“Fuck you.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Lookit, you went to school for pre-law, don’t fuckin’ psycho analyze me, you unqualified _ shit _.”

Curling laughter that bloomed in his chest and Sam stood up straight, watched his brother fight for the cuff of his jeans with a dead tree. A branch snapped and Dean stumbled. Sam watched him struggle with the forest between them. This felt like the most normal thing he’d had in weeks, months. A childish want to stay like this, try and be the boys they had never had the chance to be. Play pretend in the woods with his brother like they could have done once upon a time, but such things were never meant to be. They had been given guns and knives instead of bicycles that he still didn’t know how to ride. 

Another snap, a crunch from where he caught himself in the midst of a fall and Sam just shook his head and watched his brother where he struggled. Forever locked in his pride and never willing to admit it, but there was something so perfectly familiar about the mood that had settled between them. Reminiscent of months long past when he had woken with a spoon in his mouth and his brothers cackling laughter in his ear, Sam wanted to stay like this, safe from the sticky dark curl of anxiety that had made a home for itself in his lungs. It was easier like this, everything felt almost normal for just a few beats of his heart, he could almost convince himself that his life hadn’t caught fire from the back of his mind when things were like this. 

Dean got to his feet though, dusted mud off his knees and Sam felt his smile fall. He watched his brother shake off the laughter and the maybes that had tried to settle on his skin and he swallowed, licked at chapped lips and stepped over a wide puddle. Quick strides, sure footed even as he started to ache all over again, even as Dean kept pace with him despite the yards between them. 

Distance where there didn’t used to be, more than an arm’s span and less than a mile but it felt like more, but it hurt like more, and Sam just–

“Holy _ shit _.”

The trees stopped a few feet back like the forest had been cleaved, dirt eaten up by a shoreline of tumbled rocks that curved along either side of him. No grass or weeds, the trees kept at bay and any greenery behind him like the rocks had choked them back. Dean’s voice echoed, the rain barely disturbed the lake that had seemingly snuck up on them, and Sam watched the delicate mist that curled across the water in the distance. The crackle of his brother’s voice and it was quiet otherwise, suffocatingly so and there was nothing to distract from the too dark throb of his heart in the back of his head. 

Slower now but he crept forward, ever curious despite himself and the dangers it may cause and he heard Dean move about on the rocks. They shifted underfoot, almost loose like they weren’t used to weight, and Sam stumbled when he walked. 

The water felt like ice on his skin, rough rocks skidding across his palms, and chills broke out across his skin. Wrist deep in it, his knees dug into the unforgiving rocks beneath him and his breath puffed against the water’s quivering surface. He had broken its peace, ruined something tranquil and he could hear his brother start to laugh at him to his left, snorting chuckles as Dean clattered across the rocky shore toward him. 

“Seriously, Sam?”

Her eyes were blue.

The deepest of shades on the outer ring of her irises before it shot pale and murky toward her pupils, her eyes were blue. Impossibly wide and unblinking, she watched him just out of reach and just beneath the surface of the water that he knew was only inches deep. Sweet golden curls gone loose and wild and she watched him like she hadn’t in months, looked at him like she was still able to do that. 

Heart in his throat and his head had gone blissful, perfectly quiet as he stared at her where she lay just out of reach within the water. 

_ Sam? _

A hand on his shoulder, Dean hauled him to his feet and she was gone with the riotous splash that his hands made, but he could hear her. The lake bottom song of her was suddenly there, a quiet hum in his ears that he could only just hear, and he needed her. Right there, she was right there where she shouldn’t have been but nothing made sense anymore, nothing ever really had with the world they lived in. 

“C’mon sasquatch, pretty sure that means it's nap time.”

He couldn’t see her anymore but he could hear her, could feel the gentle scrape of her fingers across his skin like the phantom she should have been. Dean pulled him back a step, turned him, and the lake’s surface had gone almost smooth once more like he had never touched it. Like she had never been there, like she hadn’t–

A strangled, punched sound in the back of his throat but Dean just steered him back to where they had come. 

“Don’t you dare get sick on me.”

_ Sammy, baby, come back. _

Older brothers shoulder bumping against his as they walked and his steps had gone leaden, steel toes dragging raucously over the loose stone like so much gravel, Jessica’s voice singing through his veins like bursting bubbles. 

-

Dean took the first shower, had stomped out of his muddy boots as soon as the door had clicked shut behind them and left Sam to check the salt lines, to throw the latch. The bathroom had sealed off, taking his brother’s grumbling with it and Sam had just stood there. Soaked to the bone and more tired than he had felt in days, weeks, exhausted like he hadn’t bothered or managed to sleep. 

Empty like he tried to pretend he wasn’t and it ached like it hadn’t in months. 

_ She had been right there _.

Wide eyes and the water had rippled on top of her, pretty white nightgown and he could have touched the wrinkled upturn of her nose, could have kissed the dimples set deep in her cheeks. Tangled his fingers in her hair and nuzzled a kiss to her temple, he could have, he could have– 

Slow motions like he was scared to disturb the strange, fleeting quiet that had touched in his brain, and Sam pulled off his boots. Left them next to the door and brushed his fingers across the salt lines, fixed them until they were thick and neat again and the outside world remained just that. Locked out the only way they knew how, nothing but a rain smeared window between himself and the world beyond, and this should have been enough. He should have felt safe here, this used to be all he needed with a kind of security that Dean had sugar coated growing up until it had seemed normal, but there was something else now. Something _ lacking _ now, just out of reach and delicate, fizzy peach that tickled at the back of his throat.

The rain was deafening, thundered just beyond the window and he blinked out of it. Salt on his fingertips and a watery vice around his heart, he couldn’t even see the car from here. Torrential downpour with the midday sky gone dirty slate grey and roiling, the lightning flares danced like fireworks across the wet pavement. The sort of thing they avoided if they could, couldn’t afford to get sick on the job, but this wasn’t, he couldn’t just–

_ Sammy, aren’t you going to come home? _

Acid curdle in the back of his throat, a sharp blister burn behind his eyes, he wanted to cry all over again. Rib snap kind of grip on his chest and he nearly expected them to creak under the pressure, and Sam brought up a shaking hand. Fingers splayed wide across his heart like that would help any and his nails bit into his skin when they curled, fisted his shirt for something to hold where he swayed. Where he wanted and could almost taste and he didn’t understand why they had had to leave, she had been right there. 

He had just wanted to stay.

Hands buried in frigid lake water and everything had gone so quiet. That bitter curl in the back of his head had shut up long enough for him to breathe, but the drying water on his skin took that tranquility with it. Her voice drifted further, he couldn’t feel her fingers sweeping gentle across his spine anymore, how was he supposed to breathe without her in his lungs?

Sharp inhale and he shook his head, scattered the salt from his fingers and stalked from the window. He nearly fell on the furthest bed in his haste, caught himself against the wall instead and sat heavily like his strings had been cut. Legs folding, socks bunching against the carpet and Sam swore, crackling and raw.

_ “ _ Fuck, fuck, _ fuck _.”

He’d almost forgotten what desperation tasted like, a few hours in the gentle lullaby of the car and he’d believed the way his heart had calmed down. Almost convinced himself he was okay, rocking motion made things as quiet as they would ever get and Dean’s half mumbled singing had paved the rest of the way. Sam had felt like a functioning human being for the first time in weeks, and then a fucking tumble into stagnant lake water had sent his world belly up all over again. 

Hands climbing, one caught at his mouth where he stuffed the meat of his palm between his teeth, the fingers of the other slipping around his throat. Wide palmed pressure that wouldn’t leave a mark, he knew how to not leave bruises when he wanted to, something for him to bite down on while he’d started to rock in place. He couldn’t make noises, couldn’t sob like he ached to do but he’d had practice with this, knew just where and how hard to place his hands so nobody ever knew. 

Dean hadn’t noticed when he was twelve, Dean wouldn’t notice when he was twenty-three.

He could hear screaming, somewhere behind his ears and between the throbbing of his heart, electric static echoing that most often hit him in the middle of the night. Didn’t know them, wouldn’t know them, hopefully he would never have any faces to match the wailing terror he could hear, almost quiet in the back of his skull. Copper on his tongue like a seizure that lurked just out of reach, visions had taken to hovering just out of sight now for hours, days, long enough that the feeling turned normal. 

Breathing through the blood soaked cotton of his lungs, Sam stared at the opposite wall with widened eyes and a muffled wheeze. 

Pins and needles in his feet that grew, sharp pressure in his left hip that fed the numbness to his leg. He’d pinched something, he hadn’t come down right, too long to pull himself this tight and he would lock up if he stayed like this much longer. Needed to move, Dean couldn’t find him like this when they had other things to worry about, Dean didn’t need to think his little brother had finally, finally lost his mind. Demon blood sticky pieces, tainted insides turned greased and over slick and Sam needed to hold himself together this time. He couldn’t lean on Dean like that, couldn’t dirty his brother like that when this was his fault, he’d done something wrong, had been bent and broken from the sta–

The pipes rattled, echoed in the wall that separated him and his keeper and he could hear the water rushing. 

Forced motion, second rate water pressure but he could hear _ her _.

Soft summer sun humming in the back of his throat, Friday night drunken giggles in his bloodstream like she was there again. In the room, in the walls, tucked in with his brother and pressing kisses into Dean’s shoulders like she used to do for him, the highest point she could reach on her own. 

Sickly rage trickled down his throat, bitter and hot, slick.

Hands still pressure tight on his own skin but it suddenly wasn’t enough, became too much in all the ways he didn’t need it to be with a killswitch beat of his heart. That periphery lull found him all over again as soon as he heard it, plucked the panic from his chest and stilled the rocking motion he hadn’t felt take him. Fingers trembling and they fell away from his wet, clammy face, landed in his lap with a quiet sound. Knuckles curling, joints working and there were teeth imprints in the fat of his palm, fingers pressure reddened on the other and he didn’t care. 

Cycling motion, knee cap cracking and his leg just far gone enough to be asleep, Sam staggered to his feet. Caught himself with a hand on the wall and listened to the gentle curl of her voice with swimming eyes. Cotton in his skull, candy floss stuffed between his ears in delicate spindling coils but he could breathe, he could _ breathe. _

_ Sam, c’mon baby, come back outside with me! _

Rain puddles under her bare feet, head tipped back with laughter as her wet curls clung to her throat, her shoulders, he knew exactly what she had looked like in the rare California rain. He could hear her laughter, bubbling and bright and Sam wanted to dance with her, wanted to take her hands and let her lead him outside into the parking lot for their apartment. Stomp through the puddles and spin her around, ignore his homework for long enough to make her squeal with her feet off the ground and her hands thrown up to the gray sky above. 

But she wasn’t outside, this rain was colder than what her Nevada bones had ever been used to. Jessica had never known anything this cold, had never seen a spring like this and that wasn’t, she wasn’t here, this wasn’t–

Older brother humming, the water shut off and took her with it. Choke of the pipes, graveyard vice clench around his heart and she was gone just like that all over again. His whole world was became too loud without her, his skin hurt like it didn’t fit and Sam leaned heavy on the wall. Shook his head, fingers clawing through his hair, but the bright pain didn’t help this time. He wondered if it ever had, wondered if it ever would again. 

No sound from his lips but he knew the clatter of Dean in the bathroom, scrubbed his palms over his eyes and composed himself like only a Winchester ever could. 

“Pressure’s shit but the water’s hot as fuck.”

His brother came out on a wave of steam, hair tuffed up at strange angles and a towel slung low across his hips. Distraction there, the kind that had been drawing his eyes since he was fourteen and curious. He didn’t want to touch this time though, didn’t have the criminal urge to lick like he usually did and Sam side stepped past him. None of her crimson lipstick prints on his shoulders, none of her nail scratches on the back of his neck, and he swallowed. 

“You used all of it, didn’t you?”

Dean just grinned at him over his shoulder, coy and playful and ridiculous, just like he always and Sam shook his head, huffed like he always did. 

“Shower roulette, Sammy, you won’t know till you try!”

The door clicked shut behind him and he hesitated, wanted to throw the latch like he hadn’t done since before Stanford. Thick steam wafted through the air, left a layer of condensation on the mirror so dense he couldn’t see and that was almost enough. Whisper soft and calling, he knew the gentle tones of her voice even though he couldn’t hear her properly like this. Couldn’t feel her. 

His sopping jacket fell to the floor, followed swiftly by his shirt and numb fingers snapped the fly for his jeans. Shucked them off of his legs and kicked at his boxers with a practiced, militant speed, he couldn’t take her too quiet singing. 

Knob twisting, wet tile beneath his feet and a sputtering start of water across his bowed head, he could feel her hands on his shoulders. 

Delicate fingers, thin boned and long nailed. His knees buckled. A hand smacked against the shower wall and Sam caught himself just before the fall, held the bubbling sob back where it wanted to climb past his teeth. Her arms came up, he could feel the press of her against his back, the soft crush of her breasts and the tangle of her fingers where she clung to him. Insouciant humming, half spoken words against the sharp of his shoulder blade, warm motion of her lips where she sang under her breath. 

She always did that, never once noticed the little melodies that came from her lips even as she danced around the kitchen, scrubbed her fingers through his hair in the shower. Old habits that had spawned themselves somewhere and Jess did it now, slipped her arms around him and scratched her nails across his collarbones. Pretended she didn’t feel the way he quaked against her, nudged the upturned line of her nose along his spine. 

_ “We should go swimming.” _

The shower hiccupped, a break in the stream that left him gasping, without for just a hummingbird beat of his heart. Long enough for the pressure of her to flicker out of existence all over again, the overripe peach scent of her bubbled out until there was just steam and left over cheap shampoo, and he felt like he was going to be sick. He was going to puke, the showerhead jerked above him and spewed forth a fresh stream of steaming water. 

His sob muffled into her hair, water slick and soft and Sam fell further as she wrapped her slender arms around his waist. As she clutched him close like she always did when he couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t share, fingertips tracing shapes across his spine. Her thighs against his, her body soft where he had trapped her between himself and the shower wall. Caged her in until she couldn’t go anywhere, like she couldn’t leave him and Sam cried against her hair. He felt like the helpless child he hadn’t been in years but Jess just held him up, full mouthed kisses where his heart beat furiously. 

Delicate crooning, a slight sway to where they stood while her hips nudged his own side to side but that was it, just the spray of the hot water and the throaty tones of her voice. 

_ “You’re okay, baby, I’m right here.” _

-

Grease dripped down his brother’s fingers toward his wrist, sleeves rolled back to his elbows. He clutched the burger like it might disappear if he didn’t; old habits died hard and Dean had always been particular about food. 

The diner was weakly lit by the overcast sun, artificially warm from a furnace that wheezed from the ceiling for all that the outside world still held a heavy chill. The rain had stopped for the most part, a quiet drizzle no more than a mist for the drive here from their motel. It had given him everything and nothing, the murmur of her voice in his lungs and glimpses of her from the edges of his vision. He’d started seeing things. Or maybe he’d never stopped, wrapped up too hard inside his own brain that he couldn’t tell when he was awake anymore.

This felt a lot like sleeping, the mundane sort of every day dream where his brother ate things he shouldn’t have and Sam chewed on a salad that he didn’t really like. Sticky booth seats that had tried to cling to his jeans when he’d sat, something had crunched beneath one of his boots when he’d scooted in on the bench seat. Their floor needed swept, their plates looked like they had seen better days and the waitress was too old to be their mother but just barely. 

She’d smiled at them and his brother had turned on that particular brand of charm that he’d perfected when he was ten years old and realized his eyes were pretty. Sam had just asked for a water, distracted by that serpentine curdle in the back of his head and doing his best to pretend he was fine. She’d taken it though, had left them alone once she’d taken their orders and Dean had begun to grumble about this whole endeavor being a waste of gas. No evidence, nothing concrete, nothing for them to work with, and usually he would have had something to say in response. 

Because their food had come and Dean was trying, Sam knew he was in this strange, detached kind of way, but it wasn’t what he needed. 

Half a salad that he hadn’t tasted choked down into his belly, and the rain had started up again, a thick shower of it that obstructed the car entirely out in the lot. Just like that, the whole world started and ended with the diner they’d wandered into like anything past it didn’t exist anymore. He missed California, endless summer sun and the sun warm crush of Pacific ocean tidal waves against his shins, he missed Jessica. 

Dean had said something, garbled around a mouthful of food from that stupid, laughing mouth of his and Sam’s heart throbbed like a kickdrum against his ribs. He couldn’t hear him over the roar of the rain though, the crackle of thunder he could feel under his skin and the muddy river bottom sludge of his veins. Sam couldn’t breathe. 

His arm jerked, muscle spasm that sent his elbow into his glass, water sloshing violently on the table. 

“Fucking Hell, Sam!”

Fork clattering to his plate, older brother watching him with antique bottle eyes and Sam practically threw himself from the booth. 

“Bathroom.”

Dean’s eyes burned, caught on his retreating, exposed back and Sam couldn’t breathe past the sea salt in his lungs. Quick past another waitress with a loaded tray balanced on her arm, around the corner into a thin hall and the bathroom door shut tight behind him, lock loud where it snapped in place. A finite sound, just enough to keep out the rest of the world where it had shrunk down to encompass some old little diner in northern Michigan. Sam just stood in the dark for a minute, felt it press in on him and hold him like he didn’t deserve. Like it wanted to keep him when nothing else did anymore, he knew the way his brother watched him when Dean thought he wasn’t looking, recognized the way Bobby didn’t take his calls as often. 

One hand on the wall and he found the switch, forced it with his palm and listened to the electricity crackle in the bulbs before light flooded the small room. Only two out of the six worked, casting the room in a dim glow of off white gone stormy pale. The walls were blue, probably, more than likely but everything was grey toned and cold in the thunderstorm quiet. Cold porcelain against his abdomen and he could feel the seep of it through his shirt, the ice of it against his palms where they braced on the lip. Such a chill that it dipped its fingers down to his bones, his teeth wanted to chatter and Sam stared down at the empty sink drain, breathed past his clenched jaw. It should have been quiet here, this should have been enough, but he could hear that acidic murmuring that sounded too much like the father he had only ever disappointed. Pressure behind his eyes, too wide knuckled and calloused hands heavy on his skin where they plucked and pulled and he sucked in a breath. 

His hand forced the cold on high, knuckles cracking against the faucet as the water gushed forth. It splattered into the basin and he caught it with cupped palms, hunched over until his shoulders blocked out the light. It stung where he splashed it across his face, tried to wash away the anxiety that lurked in his veins and screeched in the back of his skull, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t–

Water dripped down his jaw, soft hands crept around his chest, it would have been better if Dean had just killed him already. 

_ Shh, don’t talk like that. _

“It’s true.”

She pushed him further against the sink when she leaned like that, his hands still wrist deep in the basin. The water was warm though, gentle comfort on his tired body and her eyes were a dark, midnight kind of blue where she watched him in the mirror. Just over the crest of his shoulder, wet haired like she’d come in from the rain and he wanted to hold her. 

Wanted to pull his hands from the water and touch her, but his fingers just curled in it instead. 

“Jessi–”

A kiss to his back, he could feel the burn of her mouth even through his shirt and Sam shuddered. Listened to the water slosh down the drain and he felt warm, warm like he didn’t get very often anymore.

_ It’s okay Sam, I’m right here. _

His hands had gone red, fingers stiff but she squeezed him tight and it felt like breathing.

It felt like home.

-

Brilliant neon green of the _ vacancies _ sign gone rainwater molted and wild and it slanted through the blinds, cast sharp slashes of color across the edge of his brother’s bed, the floor that sprawled infinite ocean wide between them, and Sam trembled with it. Twenty-eight, he could count the cuts of neon bright that separated them and had for the last half an hour, the last hour, the last three. Twenty-eight spaces that separated him and his brother, too far for his arms to reach and growing with every throb of his heart, ever steady and constant in the guarded way Dean watched him when awake. 

Acid in his veins, the fumes of it spiraled like over sweetened bonfire smoke until he couldn't taste anything else around it. All that rot coiled up inside of him and he didn’t have anybody to blame but himself, the sticky postmortem fingers of those he couldn’t save rattling around in his brain while they screamed still. 

Flares of bright green the same color as his brother’s eyes, how was he supposed to save anybody when he didn’t even want to save himself anymore? It used to be that he would have crucified himself if only to have those eyes on him, used to nearly gut himself just to be the reason his brother smiled for all that he wanted more, more, _ more _. Sam didn’t know what to do these days, not when Dean looked at him like he wasn’t sure where he’d gone. Like he didn’t know whether to hold on with white knuckled hands or get as much distance between them as he could. 

Worse still maybe that Sam didn’t blame him, he got it, finally even if it had taken months, years. 

There was a place he belonged where Dean wouldn’t have to worry, somewhere he could go where his brother wouldn’t have to keep a lost cause shackled to his side. 

His brother deserved better than that, even if Sam wasn’t allowed to love him like he wanted. 

A crack of lightning washed the room in the celestial pale of a midnight sun, shadows gone stark and his brother’s sleeping form turned gaunt. Roll of thunder eighteen seconds off and the sky split in two, rainfall audible outside all over again where the downpour had stopped just an hour ago. He could feel the shift in the air then, waterlogged ozone on the back of his tongue with the shuffled presence of shadowed footprints beyond the door. 

Three quick knocks on the door and Dean didn’t stir, breathing even and slow, deep. 

_ Sammy, let’s go for a walk, baby. _

Dean didn’t move, so Sam did, pushed himself up with numb hands and left his almost something behind.

-

Frigid rainfall and the hungry roil of thunder overhead, a fluttering layer of ground fog lingered around his thighs. Quiet footsteps, eyes gone black in the lightning lit night, she swayed five feet ahead of him. Always just out of reach, just far enough that he couldn’t touch but Sam could hear her laughter, the delicate, throaty melody of her voice. 

_ What do you say we find some private property to go swimming in again? _

-

She had too many teeth when she smiled. 

Pale face when the sky broke open above them with another crack of light, she had to be cold. His skin hurt where the rain bit into him, icy in the post midnight chill, his bare feet ached on the pavement as he walked. Followed her blindly like he always had, a few steps behind and a heartbeat too slow in the wake of a starfire and–

And–

She had too many teeth when she smiled, and Sam stumbled when the pavement got swallowed up by mud and moss.

-

Bubbling laughter, phantom fingers on his skin, but she’d slipped away from him, walked faster than him. He had never been able to keep up, some things never changed and Sam lumbered forward with one foot in front of the other. Wet mud between his toes, the scrape of a low hanging branch against his cheek, but he wandered on. 

That siren song just beyond the treeline, the perfect lull that was almost there.

_ You’re so slow _.

Teasing, curling words, a little pop of a giggle at the end and Sam’s heart felt ready to burst, chest stale bathwater heavy and cold. 

He broke through the treeline with a roll of thunder and the sky went quiet.

-

The rain fell heavy against his head and shoulders, and the water was cool where it lapped around his ankles. Bare feet on the stones beneath him, sharp angles and smoothly worn places on his tender arches but the pain was a comfort. Classic companion to the chill that swept up from his toes, the tops of his feet, climbed his skin from wherever the water touched, and he sighed. Hands loose, unclenched fists for the first time in hours and everything was so quiet here, no chattering birdsong and none of the trawling boats from the Great Lake. 

It was pure and untouched here, just the icy water that promised to hold him and the throbbing of his heart. 

Head gone muffled for all that it hadn’t gone still and his blood was warm despite the frigid spring water. Almost enough and just within reach and he swayed forward another step and felt the water slosh around his shins. Another burst of ice against his skin, frozen teeth to his bones and his breath spilled from between chapped lips on a quiet, gusting sound. And it was perfect here, just like this, with that sweet cradle at the tips of his fingers offering the comfort of a home he had never had and the near silence. 

Just the sound of the rain against the sugar maple canopy behind him and the plunking of it on the lake’s surface, but he could hear it still. Underwater bubbled and called to him, that same sirens’ song that had slipped beneath his skin when his hands had first broken the surface and he wanted it, ached. For everything had gone candied sweet and soft for just a moment before he’d been pulled back but it had been enough, the only comfort he had found that silenced that muddy serpentine crooning, and he had tried. Showers hadn’t helped, he had lost time watching the water slip down the drain with the singing just quiet enough he couldn’t quite find it. 

There was nobody to bang on the door about hot water now though, and Sam blinked open eyes he hadn’t even realized he had shut.

The lake rippled with each raindrop until it danced, little waves that crashed into one another and sent the ripples spiraling out of their perfect patterns. Water to his knees, just above them and his fingers would touch soon. He could almost hold it like it held him and a sound of quiet content left him, tension steadily bleeding from his shoulders as his skin prickled. Wet denim on his skin, waterlogged and heavy enough to weigh him down further still and there was a hum on his breath, that same song that had curled into his brain. 

The forest around him was empty, still where all the wildlife had fled, and he could see her. 

Out in open water where only the rain dared to disturb, sweet blonde curls gone wet, golden and wild where they floated just beneath the surface. He couldn’t make out the color of her eyes from here but he knew them, _ he knew them _ and Sam would have sobbed with it at one point, at the memory of her and the ashes that had cloyed the bubbly peach of her perfume. Now he just moved, followed her and the unblinking of her wide eyes where they watched him from just barely above the water, he wanted to touch and be touched. The promise of her and all she had to offer was right there, so breathtakingly close that all he had to do was reach out and take it and nothing had been this perfect, not since he fell on that bed and sighed, not since he settled in and waited for her to come home. 

Quiet singing, that same song and he stumbled forward another step, another, righted himself when the water crested high at his thighs, and watched her where she waited. She didn’t move, the water that touched her undisturbed, and he ached fiercely, fingers submerged to the third knuckle. He was warm where it touched, the chill of it beyond him, and instead he smiled, slow and uneven. He felt drunk with it, felt like the sloppy kind of happy he’d been when she’d breathed too sweet smoke between his lips on their fire escape. 

Water at his hips, bare feet sliding across the stone bottom, water at the tender of his abdomen, it felt like coming home. 

Every step quieted those harsh, cutting whispers a little further, every inch the water climbed pushed them down a little more. If he went deep enough, they wouldn’t be there at all. He wouldn’t hear the things his brother said in his sleep, wouldn’t know the words on his liquor curling tongue at the thing Sam had become. Didn’t need to remember the familiar weight of their Dad’s disappointment when he could just let the water in instead. The monsters that liked to live inside him couldn’t survive if he drowned them. 

The water came to his wrist and she slipped under the surface with a single ripple, took all of her pretty hair with her and Sam was left with nothing. Nothing but the too loud screaming of those voices again, sickly twisting until he expected his body to start to seize and shake and he jolted forward a series of steps. Mid chest, his throbbing heart half submerged and the sound he made was wrecked, mournful and desperate all at once because he hadn’t meant to do it wrong, he hadn’t wanted to upset her. Not now, not when he had just found her again, with her skin as pale as he had ever seen it, but he knew those eyes. 

_ “Please.” _

Blue, dark rimmed irises and murky near her pupils like the color had concentrated too much at the edges, luminous and wide where they stared at him over the gently flickering water. Where _ she _ watched him, sodden golden curls floating around her once more and she was so close now. 

A punched sob from low in his chest, birthed beneath the water’s sweeping surface and he paused, watched her. Scared to take his eyes off her lest she leave again, but it was worse to stay still, the voices still there and the broken glass curdle of his own anxiety still biting at his insides for all that she was right there. Right there and reaching for him, he could see her pale fingers beneath the water and the water shifted around his shoulders. Just a little quieter now but nowhere near the hush it had been, and his hands came up, fingers uncurling beneath the surface. 

She was warm to the touch, soft skin and delicate nails and her hands fit perfectly in his, just like they always had. Slender fingers that stretched, their palms skimmed together as he stepped closer and she grasped his wrists, gave a gentle tug like she used to do when he was being too slow. The water sloshed about them as he moved, as she pulled herself up enough that her mouth was visible for just a moment, lips in that mischievous half smile. Full cheeks, eyes crinkling just a bit at the corner as her brow furrowed, as her hair clung to her throat and shoulders. 

And everything went quiet inside, blissfully silent like it hadn’t been in over a year and Sam could have cried. He grasped her hands instead, listened to the crooning in his blood that sounded like his name, _ c’mon baby, swim with me _ and she was everything he had missed. She had him following her into the depths of it, stepping until his feet couldn’t touch the bottom and the rocks beneath him dropped off into nothing. Just her hands in his and the cottony silence in his head, the water skimming his chin every time they moved. 

Her smile was wide, too many teeth and perfect and Sam wanted to kiss her, wanted a lot of things and she knew, she had to. Because she smiled like that and her hands skimmed up his arms, caught his shoulders and he couldn’t feel that cage in his chest, not when she looked at him like that. 

“Sammy!”

A scream broke from the treeline some forty yards back from the shore and still muffled by the trees. Or maybe that was the water between his ears, the rushing of his blood from where she smiled at him in that same wild, dimpled way that she always had. Distorted a voice and a name that he should have turned with, would have, used to. Swept away a calling that Sam knew until he didn't care, not when her slender hands curled up to cup his face, touch warmer than the rest of him had been in so long and perfect.

_ "Sam!" _

Her hands at his jaw, thumbs at his throat and she pulled, pretty eyed and pale skinned until the lake’s water swallowed them up beneath its rippling surface. The frantic screaming was lost then above him, muted and taken until he didn't need to care. Nothing mattered past her hands on his skin and the crooning of her voice within his veins.

It was quiet here, like a Sunday morning break of dawn with the sheets tangled up in her legs and a hush to their home. Everything was so simple and soft while the water took his weight.

His throat clenched instinctively against the pressure of it, locked in what oxygen Sam had as his lips sealed shut. It burned, liquid and too much. The water stung at his eyes when he blinked to try to find her, his skin hurt like the times he had run through the snow for all that he was warm and she was beautiful. Golden hair dark in the under tide dimness and it floated around her pale face like a living halo. He nearly sighed, could feel the want. White and thin, her nightgown clung to a form his hands knew all too well. He reached out then for the dip of her waist, the flair of a hip.

A steadily growing pressure on his chest, just above his stomach and somewhere below his throat, he frowned. Head heavy while his blood started to roar in his ears but his body sank, slowly but surely, weighted like rocks in his pockets. Gentle hands, insistent where she kept him close, a murky, delicate joy found from the way she pressed her mouth to his. Unparted lips and his heart began to pound, Sam watched her and the way she smiled with a confused, growing ache. For the vicious whispers that ate at the back of his brain had been squashed out the moment the water closed over his head, but the primal throb of his heart went perfectly with the crushing weight on his chest.

_ Breathe, baby. I'm right here. _

Oh.

That was that then, that thing he hadn't known he needed until she whispered it within his throat. His jaw unclenched, white hot pain in his chest burning bright for just a moment before the water flooded in. It came down his throat and filled his belly, ran its way into his lungs like it knew what he needed better than he did. Midnight sun bright in his veins and his whole world burned for it. Fat bubbles burst forth from his lips while his fingers bit hard into her skin and Sam watched her too toothy smile cut across her face once again. 

He gagged with it, too much at once for all that the water was honeyed and sweet to his lungs, but his heart wouldn't stop screaming in his chest. Feral pounding, a desperate clamor that hit its peak when his eyes started to roll. When his body went limp and Sam lost his grip on her. Quiet in his head and he felt her let him go, slow fingers on his throat like she didn't want to leave him quite yet. His feet had just found the bottom, she couldn't abandon him yet. She couldn't leave him now, he just wanted to come home, he just–

A bubble from between his teeth, smaller than the rest but just as precious. It reached the screaming surface faster than his body did, slow and water weighted as he had become, it got to Dean before his bones and his feebly beating heart.

-


End file.
